The Internet is just the latest of a growing number of large computer networks in which a number of server computer systems provide services to countless client computer systems. Each of the server computer systems require maintenance as new software is made available or existing software is upgraded.
Such maintenance typically involves a human computer engineer accessing each server individually and customizing software for each server. Requiring human access to each individual server effectively limits the number of servers that can be maintained and represents a relatively high cost for such maintenance.
What is needed is a mechanism by which software installation and maintenance to various servers of a computer network can be more automated and, as a result, more error-free.
Such a system would significantly reduce the cost in providing large numbers of such servers.